I keep coming back to an analogy that I have made many times in the past several months that may help us all. Remember the first web site you saw? Was it in ’96, ’98, earlier? That website was an act of faith on the part of someone who convinced someone else that they (the organization) needed one. So they got some smart technical guys to code up the site and viola – they were ‘on the world wide web’.
This was status quo for about a year, most websites didn't change content, didn't manage traffic, didn't really do much of anything except trumpet the fact that they were ahead of the pack. This changed over time as people saw that the content needed to be freshened, and that audiences demanded more. Going back to the original developers become very expensive, especially to do things like text changes.
A new job was born – the Web Master. Someone who became facile at the rapidly developing set of available tools. This job DID NOT EXIST prior to this time. Now when you ask an organization about their Webmaster, they may tell you they have two or three or a team of 12.
We are at such an inflection point today with online communities, social networks, social media and all of the related technologies. This explosion in the tools, the rapid adoption across the general population (some reports suggest that 1 in 6 will be using these tools globally by 2012) and the ease at which a social media strategy can be implemented has us at another inflection point. Enter the Community Manager. Once you have discovered your social media strategy, built it out and launched it, you will definitely need to focus ongoing attention to the care and feeding of all of the aspects of it.
This reality is causing many to postpone efforts or to try to find another way. I would suggest that is like planting a garden and hoping you don’t get any weeds, that none of the plants need watering and that you never have to prune them if they do live. It is not realistic.
That is why we will focus on understanding the work related to running a successful online community this Thursday with webinar to listen to a panel of professionals discussing what they know a lot about: Managing Online Communities.
For the past seven years at introNetworks, our focus to date has been on crafting and launching the community, with a more casual approach to managing, or tending it. In the past six months I have been focusing on why such a casual attitude and I believe that in most cases people just don't know what to do. Many are making it up as they go along, as they have been tasked with task of managing the masses, and don't have the background or temperament or more importantly, the time to do the job well.
That's why this month I thought we would focus on answering these five questions:
· So what does a Community Manager do all day?
· Why is having a community manager so critical?
· What are the characteristics of a great community manager?
· What is appropriate to expect from a community manager?
· What happens when you don't have a community manager?
And to help us better understand the answers, we have these experts joining us:
· Moderator: Jim Storer
o Co-Founder, The Community Roundtable,
blogging at JimStorer.com
· Rachel Happe
o Co-founder, The Community Roundtable,
blogging at TheSocialOrganization.com
· Howard Wahlberg
o Asst. Executive Director, Community Manager,
the National Science Teachers Association
· Amber Naslund
o
Community Manager, Radian6,
blogging at AltitudeBranding.com and AmberNaslund.com
· Mark Sylvester
(me)
o Co-founder, CEO, introNetworks,
blogging at MarkSylvester.com
Each of these people has an amazing back-story – all have been involved in some sort of online community or social media activity for quite a while. They are dealing with issues in their community on a daily basis and are helping to light the way for the rest of us to follow.
Join us in the conversation. Or follow along on Twitter, #introchat
